Odisha, like any Indian state, was struggling to manage its municipal solid waste on a day-to-day basis. The eastern state generates 1,935 tonnes of waste per day, out of which 54.2 percent is organic waste and the rest is inorganic.
This large pile of waste was either lying inside wards of the cities or getting piled up at dumpsites owing to poor source segregation, irregular collection, unscientific transportation, and unavailability of proper treatment facilities.
The Government of Odisha, realizing the threat to the environment, took a firm policy decision to adopt the decentralised systems of waste management in May, 2019
The Housing and Urban Development Department (H&UD) took a historic step by issuing a directive to all the 114 urban local bodies (ULB) to cancel all on-going tenders that were not in line with decentralised micro-composting or material recovery to begin executing the plan July 16, 2019.
Simultaneously, the department was in the process of preparing the standard operating procedure (SOP) for decentralised solid waste management. Under these regulations, micro composting centres (MCC) would treat organic waste in an aerobic manner and material recovery facilities would sub-segregate dry waste before channelising into recyclers or processing facilities
All the ULBs started implementing the SOPs according to the order and the progress was rigorously monitored by the state programme monitoring units. On local self government day on August 31, 2020, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik dedicated 100 MCCs and 50 MRFs to the ULBs for their astounding achievement towards this paradigm shift.
Performance of MCCs:
- The target decided for the MCC for all ULBs was: 242 numbers
- Target achieved till date in percentage: 81 per cent
- Wet Waste getting processed in percentage: 96 per cent
Performance of MRFs:
- The target decided for the MRF for all ULBs was:153 numbers
- Target achieved till date in percentage: 100 per cent
- Dry Waste getting processed in percentage: 100 per cent
The success of the operation in Odisha has demonstrated that a decentralized system is the best way to manage waste, considering all aspects of environmental and economical sustainability.
Eswachh is an End-to-End waste management company, It uses its technology to do a door-to-door collection of source segregated waste. The wet waste is composted to make high-grade manure and dry waste is sent to its MRF to recover and process the dry waste. Eswachh is working with various farmer organizations to provide the farmers with Organic Manure. The manure is also procured by Govt. / ULB/ Horticulture department to make the model sustainable. In Odisha Model the Manure is getting procured at Rs. 20 Per kg.
